Since the start of the recession, North Carolinians have received $2.2 billion in unemployment insurance payments. These regular, emergency and extendedbenefits, in turn, have generated $3.7 billion in economic activity. Absent the payments, the state’s economic woes would be worse.

The NC Budget & Tax Center looks at the local economic impact of unemployment insurance in its new BTC Brief Slowing the Slide: Unemployment Insurance Payments Bolster Family Buying Power, Blunt Recession’s Local Impacts.